Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green is speaking out one day after a controversial press conference and anonymous letter targeting Providence schools was sent to the superintendent.

Current and former Providence mayors met Monday, encouraging incoming mayor Brett Smiley to take on the teacher’s union.

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Among a list of recommendations for the city’s failing education system that’s in state control, Mayor Jorge Elorza and former Mayors Angel Taveras and Joseph Paolino Jr. called on the city to move to an all-public charter system if the union doesn’t agree to contract changes.

“I’m not sure what they were hoping to accomplish with that,” Infante-Green told the NBC 10 I-Team in an exclusive interview. “I guess every outgoing mayor gives their advice to the incoming mayor, I guess this was their advice.”

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Expanding charter schools would require the approval of Infante-Green, not the city’s mayor.
“No one has approached me about that,” she said. “I think we are just figuring out what parents want, what students need, what our system needs as a whole, and we have not had other conversations at this point.”
When asked whether she’d sign off on a charter school expansion, the commissioner responded, “We have a department that does that, the charter school office, and those decisions are made based on many different factors, basically what the parents want, what the instruction looks like, what options parents have in the community."
“We are not there yet, that is not a conversation that we are having at RIDE [Rhode Island Department of Education] at this point," she added.
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In the press conference, the former mayors pointed out they failed to accomplish what they wanted for Providence schools while in office, then listed off recommendations they believe would send Smiley in the right direction including addressing the management structure, investing in school buildings and working with key stakeholders.
The district was taken over by the state in 2019 under outgoing Mayor Elorza’s watch, after a scathing John Hopkins report, a class action lawsuit that claimed Rhode Island had deprived students of literacy skills, and years of underperforming.
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While Smiley isn’t in control of the district, Infante-Green says she hopes he plays a critical role in reforming the public school system.
“I hope and we’ve already discussed being partners, figuring out where we can leverage each other and how we can be at the table together,” she said. “He has a distinctive interest in early childhood, pre-K, and making sure our kids are set up for success early on, and that’s something that we share.”
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Just hours before that news conference, an anonymous letter claiming to be from eight district level leaders in Providence came out, raising several complaints about a senior advisor to the superintendent.
The letter accused Joan Jackson of creating a work environment that’s “hostile, intimidating and abusive,” among other allegations.
Providence Public School Superintendent Dr. Javier Montañez, sent us the following statement in response:
“Anyone who leaks confidential student records and allegedly writes anonymous letters to undercut their colleagues does not have the best interest of our district or students in mind. I’ve watched this kind of behavior hold back Providence for decades – this is nothing new. It’s also incredibly disrespectful to myself, Ms. Jackson, and the educators in our District who show up every day and put in the work. Every minute spent addressing anonymous rumors is one less minute spent working for our students. I address concerns like these in person and encourage anyone with an issue to reach out to me directly. Until then, I have work to do.”
The letter also mentioned Infante-Green, alledging she has excluded principals, teachers, and the school board from major decisions.
“I can’t really respond to an anonymous letter because it serves to do nothing but disrupt,” Infante-Green said. “I don’t understand why somebody would waste their time in doing something like that. If they really wanted to change things, then they would come and approach the superintendent or myself or anyone in the district office.”
The letter goes on to question grade inflation at A-Venture Academy, allegations that came to light in August after members of the school board claimed some students received false grades and credits to help them graduate high school.
RIDE launched an internal investigation, which determined the allegations were unfounded.
“Part of the problem with that letter is it is riddled with inaccuracies,” Infante-Green said. “I really don’t spend a lot of time with anonymous letters, if people come to us and they want to address an issue, we will address it. No one can say that that has not happened.”
Infante-Green dismissed the letter as gossip, and said her sights are focused on the future of Providence students.
“Instead of having those kinds of petty conversations, which is what we have experienced a lot of gossip here and there, we should be talking about the great things that are happening, because there are schools that actually went back to pre-pandemic levels, schools that actually went up on their SAT scores,” she said. “Those are things that are happening and that’s what we are keeping our sights on, not entertaining gossip, because that is gossip.”